Political Parties in Australia - Federal Parliamentary Parties and Their Leaders

Federal Parliamentary Parties and Their Leaders

As of 2012:

• Liberal Party figures include Liberal National Party of Queensland and Country Liberal Party of the Northern Territory.

Currently the ALP is in government federally, and also in South Australia, Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory.

The other group is a conservative grouping of parties that are in coalition at the Federal level, as well as in New South Wales and Victoria, but compete in Western Australia and South Australia. The main party in this group is the centre-right Liberal Party. The Liberal Party is the modern form of a conservative grouping that has existed since the fusion of the Protectionist Party and Free Trade Party into the Commonwealth Liberal Party in 1909. Although this group has changed its nomenclature, there has been a general continuity of MPs and structure between different forms of the party. In its modern form, it was founded by Robert Menzies in 1944. The party's philosophy is generally liberal conservatism, although it has moved rightwards since the 1980s.

Every elected Prime Minister of Australia since 1910 has been a member of either the Labor Party, the Liberal Party, or one of the Liberal Party's previous incarnations (the Commonwealth Liberal Party, the Nationalist Party of Australia, or the United Australia Party).

The Liberal Party is joined by the National Party, a party that seek to represent rural interests, especially agricultural ones. The Nationals contest a limited number of seats and does not generally directly compete with the Liberal Party. Its ideology is generally more socially-conservative than that of the Liberal Party. In 1987, the National Party made an abortive run for the prime ministership in its own right, in the Joh for Canberra campaign. However, it has generally not aspired to become the majority party in the coalition, and it is generally understood that the Prime Minister of Australia will be a member of either the Labor or Liberal parties. On two occasions (involving Earle Page in 1939, and John McEwen) from December 1967 - January 1968, the leader of the National Party (then known as the Country Party) became the Prime Minister temporarily, upon the death of the incumbent P.M. Sir Arthur Fadden was the only other Country Party P.M. He assumed office in August 1941 after the resignation of Sir Robert Menzies, and served as Prime Minister until October of that year.

The Liberal and National parties have merged in Queensland and the Northern Territory, although the resultant parties are different. The Liberal National Party of Queensland, formed in 2008, is a branch of the Liberal Party, but it is affiliated with the Nationals and members elected to federal parliament may sit as either Liberals or Nationals. The Country Liberal Party was formed in 1978 when the Northern Territory gained responsible government. It is a separate member of the federal coalition, but it is affiliated with the two major members and its president has voting rights in the National Party. The name refers to the older name of the National Party.

Federally, these parties are collectively known as the Coalition. The Coalition has existed continually (between the Nationals and their predecessors, and the Liberals and their predecessors) since 1923, with minor breaks in 1940, 1973, and 1987.

Historically, support for either the Coalition or the Labor Party was often viewed as being based around class, with the middle classes supporting the Coalition and the working class supporting Labor. In more recent times, this has been a less important factor because the 1970s and 1980s saw the Labor Party gain a significant bloc of middle-class support and the Coalition gain a significant bloc of working class support.

The two-party duopoly has been relatively stable, with the two groupings (Labor and Coalition) gaining at least 70% of the primary vote in every election since 1910 (including the votes of autonomous state parties). Third parties have only rarely received more than 10% of the vote for the Australian House of Representatives in a Federal election, such as the Australian Greens in the 2010 Federal election and the Australian Democrats in the 1990 Federal election, which indicates the stability of the Australian two-party system.